Massachusetts court to reconsider legality of marriage for out-of-state couples

The question of whether same-sex couples from Rhode Island can marry in Massachusetts returns to court Monday. An anti-interracial-marriage law dating back to 1913 was recently upheld by the state’s supreme judicial court in a case involving gay and lesbian couples from other states wishing to marry in Massachusetts.

The antiquated law says that marriage licenses cannot be given to out-of-state couples if their marriages would not be legal in their home states, but following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that laws barring interracial couples from marrying were illegal, the Massachusetts statute fell into disuse.

After same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, however, Republican governor Mitt Romney resurrected the old law to order local clerks not to issue marriage licenses to couples from outside the state. In upholding the law in March, the state supreme judicial court noted that all the states from which the appellants came, with the exception of Rhode Island, have laws specifically banning same-sex marriage and that in the case of couples from Rhode Island, the matter should return to the lower court for a ruling.

Whatever that court rules, the decision is expected to be appealed and will likely wind up again before the supreme judicial court. (Sirius OutQ News)

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